


Close Your Eyes, Breathe in, Breathe Out

by buckysstars



Category: Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Dad Bucky Barnes, Gen, I hope this doesn't suck, James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, WInter Soldier (2018), rj boyle - Freeform, winter soldier second chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 18:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckysstars/pseuds/buckysstars
Summary: It’s almost been a year since Bucky took RJ in, gunshot wound to the chest, confused as hell about who he was. Still is. Bucky keeps promising things will turn up. It’s the same thing everyday, you’re going to get better. Be happier."Are you okay, RJ?"





	Close Your Eyes, Breathe in, Breathe Out

“Hey, bud, what are you doing out here?”

RJ cranes his head to the doorway of Bucky’s suburban home in Indiana in September. He found himself out here in Bucky’s backyard again, refusing to turn the hanging twinkly lights on.

“Nothing,” RJ mumbles and turns his head back to look back at the stars. His face is suddenly covered in a cotton cloth and he scurried to move it.

“It’s cold,” Bucky says, walking up to the hammock after throwing a sweatshirt at RJ.

“It’s not,” RJ says, grabbing the sweatshirt while swinging in the hammock and moving his leg to the outside of the hammock to kick Bucky. He wheezily laughs and grabs RJ’s leg and tosses it back into the hammock.

RJ turns so he’s sitting horizontally on the hammock and stares at Bucky, who’s posture lax and his hands on his hips. Bucky smirks and plops down next to him, the hammock groaning and swinging wildly.

“You’re too big,” RJ laughs, scooting over for the larger man. “The metal arm from Tony itself weights like two thousand pounds.”

Bucky looks over at him, chuckling under his breath and a closed-mouth smile beams on his face. He turns away to catch RJ’s line of vision, the stars.

Bucky sighs and RJ can’t help but notice. Is it a satisfied sigh? An annoyed sigh? Is he going to yell at him?

“You know, what you did earlier was idiotic,” Bucky says, refusing to look him in the eyes. But RJ won’t back down, he’s glaring into the side of Bucky’s head and hopes it’s burning. Why does Bucky think he has the right to judge what he did earlier? He already has enough pressure on himself, all pent up from Mr. Colt and his betrayal.

Bucky huffs, and RJ just rolls his eyes.

It’s almost been a year since Bucky took RJ in, gunshot wound to the chest, confused as hell about who he was. Still _is._ Bucky keeps promising things will turn up. It’s the same thing everyday, _you’re going to get better_. _Be happier._

RJ didn’t mean to act on a stupid suspicion earlier, but he did, and it resulted in a quiet and awkward dinner. He can just feel his chest tightening with anxiety, it’s never ending. He blood on his hands won’t go away, and he knows Bucky feels the same way.

Bucky finally looks at him. Like, _looks_ at him and his expression is guarded and worried and full of affection. After losing his own dad, RJ can’t help but place Bucky as a father figure in his own mind. But he’s _not_. He killed his dad.

“Are you okay, RJ?” Bucky asks, his face softening but maybe seeing him in pain causes an extreme mood shift right away. Bucky doesn’t mask the displeased frown on his face, and RJ can just feel the swell of anger. “You really did scare me. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking.”

RJ looks up at him, his eyes widening because _that_ isn’t what he was expecting. The swinging of the hammock stops, and the sun is completely down, the September breeze picking up and sending a chill down his body. Before RJ can answer, Bucky cuts him off again.

“I’m not angry at you for acting on your suspicions, but RJ, we talked about this. If you think you need help, _call me_. Were you even thinking?” Bucky’s raising his voice now.

“I was!” RJ retaliates, sitting up to scoot further away from Bucky on the hammock. He just wishes they’d have one afternoon without arguing, but this is almost every night. “I did think about it! I _promise_, I did. Please understand that. I panicked when I saw them, I _thought_ they were apart of Hydra, there was no other choice but to defend myself. I thought, if I did defend myself they couldn’t get me or anybody else. You can’t blame me for that!”

“But they got _you_,” Bucky says, the anger bubbling up inside him once again. “You’re damn lucky that you walked away from that fight and nobody else saw. You just— you don’t attack random mob bosses!”

“I’m sorry,” RJ says, looking up at Bucky. He throws his head back, listening to the chirps of the annoying bugs all around them. All these emotions pent up over the last year away from Bucky, Tony, and Sharon are flooding back in, each feeling of betrayal, affection, longing, and hurt make him feel pathetic. “I’m sorry.”

The second time he says this, the guilt over everything he has ever done, all the killing, is being weighed down on his shoulders. The guilt from his entire life. He really shouldn’t be here again with Bucky, maybe he hasn’t forgiven him for his father’s death. He doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.

It’s pathetic how quickly RJ’s tears well up in his eyes, and god dammit, Bucky notices. Of course he does. Because his own chest is heaving from his rapid breaths, he feels like he’s going to pass out from alkalosis. Bucky doesn’t say anything.

The manipulation and being tortured just overwhelmed every fiber in his being, right in this moment under the stars he really believes that he did deserve it and doesn’t deserve what he has now. Bucky and a roof over his head. All he’s recently been doing is crying during therapy that he agreed to go back to, crying outside of therapy, and refusing to open up to Bucky again. He can hear his own voice screaming at Bucky, calling him a liar. He squeezes his eyes shut and _feels_ Bucky’s worried gaze on him.

RJ finally opens his mouth. And what comes out is a soft cry. And just that confirms all of his thoughts; he’s getting bad again, and he’s nowhere near becoming better.

Just like Bucky promised, he won’t get better. He’ll never get there. What is a second chance anyways?

“I said I’m sorry already. I said I’m sorry,” RJ rambles, his voice unrecognizable. “I’m fine, Bucky.”

He stands up, frantically getting away from this hammock. He lets out a heavy sigh. “Or maybe I’m not. I don’t know.”

He shrugs, Bucky’s watching with a close-calculating gaze. “I really don’t know.”

RJ stares up at the sky. The stars. “Maybe I should go inside and change. I don’t know.”

He breathes in and turns. “And you lied to me. You did. Why am I bringing this up?”

He can hardly feel his own chest, “I came from something and turned into nothing. I don’t know why you bothered to take me in again, I really don’t know. I didn’t have a bullet wound this time.”

RJ is sobbing now. “I don’t have a bullet wound. But it feels like it does. Bucky I don’t have a bullet wound—“

RJ feels arms envelope him, pulling him down to the hammock, suffocating him even more. But it’s just Bucky. He can’t breathe, but the press of Bucky, _safeness,_ he clings onto Bucky’s shirt. He doesn’t know if he should push him off, giving him space to _breathe_, give his lungs a chance to fill again. He just lets Bucky pull him into his arms. He needs air to fill his chest cavity that’s felt empty for years.

If he leans his head on his chest, well, Bucky doesn’t say anything.

He grips onto the back of Bucky’s t-shirt, feeling like a little kid who just had a meltdown.

RJ takes a breath. His lungs expand, and he felt like he hasn’t breathed in years. Really taken the time to breathe. He breathes everything in. Bucky’s chest, his shirt, the outdoors, he takes it all in. All the oxygen from the air and these familiar smells he hadn’t smelled in a year, is finally coursing through his blood. Each capillary carrying each familiar scent into his blood, and his eyes well up again. It smells like _home_.

He’s so aware of his breathing it freaks him out. But his senses are overwhelmed with such familiarity, he missed it. He missed his home. It’s not fair to call Bucky’s home his own home, but he fucking missed it.

He feels Bucky’s palm press the back of his head, and he shuts his eyes. He gasps for air, realizing he can _breathe_. There’s no bullet. There’s no bullet in his chest. Or, maybe it is there, but it’s healing. Bucky’s thumb caresses the back of RJ’s head and he can’t let go of this feeling.

RJ’s wracked sobs into quiet sniffles, and he can hear Bucky’s own breathing now. Maybe he’s purposely breathing loud, calm, to get RJ to copy him. Or he’s overthinking again. But each rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, RJ feels.

It’s an awkward angle being in Bucky’s arm on the hammock, but he doesn’t relent. His grip tightens onto Bucky. He’ll never let this go.

Bucky rubs his back. The creak of the hammock echoes through our Bucky’s backyard, and it’s finally not RJ’s sobs echoing through out the suburban neighborhood. He didn’t notice the hammock swinging gently, but turns his head slightly and sees Bucky’s leg maneuvering slowly to rock them back and forth.

RJ breathes out. His diaphragm relaxes and he can feel it. He can feel his muscles relaxing. No bullet wound. No Mr. Colt to hurt him. Nobody. It’s just him and Bucky. The air is gently forced out of RJ, and he takes a breath again.

He has a second chance to breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the Winter Soldier (2018) Second Chances. Basically a 'what if' RJ came back after leaving after finding out Bucky accidentally killed his biological father. The settings is inspired by me and my mom <3 Enjoy, comment, if you want!!!!!!


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